The story of Captain Pugwash was born in the Eagle magazine in 1950. The author John Ryan first thought of putting the story onto T.V. in 1956-7. I knew at once that proper "stop-frame" animation was quite beyond my skills so started to play with paper and scissors to make moving figures or flat puppets... The first series of films was narrated by Noel Coleman, but Peter Hawkins took over and has been the definitive voice of Captain Pugwash ever since. The music for the series, High Level Hornpipe recorded by Tom Edmonson on button accordeon in Harbottle, Northumberland in 1954 is also totally identifiable with the series. The process of telerecording was hazardous. The method was to set up three sets of captions with three cameras, each caption opertor supplied by a monitor. Peter Hawkins the narrator spoke the words in a concealed part of the studio. He had to be invisible because his acting gestures as he spoke all the voices were enough to incapacitate the animators with laughter...after an hour or so of rehearsal the programme was recorded cutting from camera to camera while the animators feverishly operated the captions.., John Ryan wrote all the scripts, and organized all the operators of his cut-outs. He said of this work ..I have certainly never considered myself part of the mainstream of cartoon animation..I wouldn't claim in any way to have invented "cut-out" animation..but I would claim to have taken it further than anybody else as a film technique.... (John Ryan Interview, 1987)
The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner was made by Ryan in conjunction with Bernard Queenan in 1966 for the Centre for Educational T.V. Overseas, Ryan developed a wood engraving black and white style for the film, and they used a ..very fruity soundtrack which Richard Burton had made as a young man.. (John Ryan Interview, 1987).